Recent advances in methods for fabricating micro-scale electronic components, and in methods for self-assembly of micro-scale components onto separately-formed substrates, are enabling the fabrication of systems that were previously impossible or impractical to construct. For example, the ability to incorporate silicon-based components onto polymeric substrates to form functional devices provides new opportunities and challenges for producing useful systems.
The advantages of systems for reliably displaying information to users in a manner that minimizes the user's need to look towards a fixed display device are well-known. For example, heads-up displays have been built into aircraft cockpit windows and military headgear. For commercial applications, wearable display devices such as head-mounted displays or devices that project images directly onto a user's retina have been developed.
It is also useful in some applications to be able to monitor an individual's biological condition, for example to evaluate chemical or biological stressors that may be present internally or externally, to monitor an individual's level of exertion, or to evaluate potential traumatic stressors, or the like. Various biosensors are, of course, known in the art, but there remains a need for providing a system for reliably collecting and monitoring biological information produced by such biosensors.
Improvements in systems for displaying information to a user, and improvements in systems capable of sensing and/or monitoring biological attributes of a user would fill such needs.
Furthermore, as video gaming technology increases in complexity, it has become desirable to ascertain the position of a user's body parts (e.g., limbs, head) as the user participates in the game so as to translate the user's body movements into game-controlling functions. The position of a hand-held controller can be determined using lights embedded in the controller that are sensed by a detector interfaced with the video game console. It has been demonstrated that similar lights can be affixed to a user's head to determine head position. There is not currently a technology that uses light to track eye position due the complexity of determining actual eye position (as opposed to simple head position) at a distance.